The defeat in the Warangal Lok Sabha by-election has exposed the unease in the tie-up between the Telugu Desam Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party which fielded a common candidate, P. Devaiah, for the bypoll.
The two parties harboured little hopes on their candidate’s victory, but the severe drubbing received at the hands of the TRS where their nominee forfeited his security deposit has come as a dampener to them. The result appears to have given scope for a blame game between the two parties with the BJP leaders expressing dissatisfaction at the “non-cooperation” by the TDP while the latter claiming in private that the alliance would have fared much better had the seat been allotted to the TDP which had strong presence in at least three Assembly segments under the Lok Sabha constituency. The two parties were at loggerheads ever since the leaderships had decided to leave the seat to BJP as part of the “coalition dharma”. The TTDP leaders openly expressed their dissatisfaction at the recent general body meeting of the party and subsequently, there were concerns expressed over the effective coordination between the two alliance partners.
Leaders of the two parties are not willing to openly air their views on the reasons for the humiliating defeat and are outwardly claiming that the result had come as a disappointment to them.
